The WCO Secretariat has taken measures and developed tools to ensure business continuity within its working bodies in the face of the constraints imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. In recent months, most WCO meetings have been held in a hybrid format, combining a document-based phase (submission of comments) with online videoconference sessions.
While face-to-face meetings are more efficient and virtual meetings present significant workload challenges for WCO Secretariat staff, the new modality has a silver lining: it is easier for WCO Member Administrations to allow their representatives to participate in discussions taking place within WCO working groups and committees, as they do not incur travel costs.
This new reality has allowed Argentine Customs to increase its participation in WCO meetings to almost 95%. It has also increased the number of Argentine officials attending the meetings. As a result, the composition of the delegation assigned to each meeting has also been more diverse. In total, more than 160 Argentine officials have participated in the various working groups, committees, seminars, workshops and conferences organized online.
Before the pandemic, the Administration's usual practice was to select the meetings it considered to be priorities from the WCO calendar for its in-person participation, in accordance with the allocation of resources for travel abroad. Argentine Customs used to send a delegation of one or, exceptionally, two representatives to the WCO headquarters in Brussels to the Anti-Fraud Committee, the Permanent Technical Committee, the Harmonized System Committee, the Technical Committee on Customs Valuation, the Policy Commission and, of course, to the Council Sessions. Although the list may seem long, for those who are not familiar with the work of the WCO, whose annual calendar includes the holding of up to more than 60 annual meetings, the list is in fact limited.
The Argentine Customs also understood that participation could go further, to the virtual meetings that the Secretariat was already organizing, such as those of the Virtual Working Group on Gender Equality and Diversity. It has recently begun to do so by attending the Group's April 2021 session, during which the Administration shared information on recent initiatives it had launched in this field.
Argentina does not have a customs attaché based in Brussels and while Argentine Customs has occasionally asked the Argentine Embassy in the Kingdom of Belgium to send a representative to a WCO meeting, in most cases the delegation must travel from Argentina to Belgium. For this purpose, members of the delegation would be selected primarily on the basis of their knowledge and experience of the subject discussed, as well as their fluency in one of the two official working languages of the WCO (English and French).
The language aspect remains decisive and restrictive, but less so now since the list of meetings for which the Secretariat provides interpretation in Spanish has been expanded as part of the “Pilot Project on the Use of Additional Languages in the WCO”.
Most WCO tools and instruments are developed during the intersessional period, and Members do not have to attend a meeting or committee to participate in the work carried out by the Secretariat. Argentine Customs has always responded to written requests, whether to answer surveys, provide seizure data to the Customs Control Network (CEN), participate in anti-fraud operations, or provide detailed explanations of its practices and procedures for inclusion in WCO compendia and other publications.
The Argentine Customs Office organized the WCO IT Conference in 2014 and a side event on Electronic Commerce in 2017 on the occasion of the XI WTO Ministerial Conference. It also actively participated with the Secretariat in capacity-building activities and has benefited from Human Resources Development Programs (Scholarship Program, Professional Development Program and Virtual Customs Orientation Academy, among others).
However, it cannot be denied that participation and engagement have gone a step further from the online meetings of WCO committees and working groups. Sometimes, up to five representatives of Argentine Customs have been able to participate in these online events. Each specialist, in a specific field, has developed synergies and cooperation, as they have had to prepare for the meetings together, as well as work together during inter-sessions.
Members of the delegation of the Working Group on the Comprehensive Review of the Revised Kyoto Convention (23th session) and the Management Committee of the Revised Kyoto Convention (24rd, 25th and XNUMXth sessions) explained that the virtual format allowed their Administration to participate in these meetings for the first time. Both during the preparation phase and in the videoconferences themselves, not only the technical topics of the Agenda but also many other topics were discussed, and they also got to know each other and created a great team dynamic. As they said, “In less than a year, we have already held two informal working sessions and four formal meetings, and we are proud to contribute to the harmonization of customs procedures.”
In order to benefit from the experience gained by each member of the delegation, the composition of the delegation to the various meetings has been officially agreed, albeit with some flexibility. Let us take the example of the Permanent Technical Committee (PTC). Argentina's journey began with the 225th/226th PTC Sessions in October 2019, with one staff member and the Director of the Technical Directorate travelling to Brussels. As regards the spring 2020 sessions, the pandemic was already present, and the WCO Secretariat decided to conduct them in a purely document-based format via the WCO CLiKC Platform. As explained in the article COVID-19: WCO adopts new procedures and tools to ensure business continuity[1]. The Secretariat then developed an interface offering web conferencing with live interpretation and thus the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 CTP sessions were conducted using a combination of a document-based phase (submission of comments) and web conference meeting sessions. The same delegation attended these remote sessions. They learned how to prepare robust and meaningful interventions, including how to request support internally and how to meet the needs and expectations of Committee members. They were also part of the ad-hoc Mini Group that revised the CTP Rules of Procedure. The Administration has recently participated in the 231st/232nd Sessions of the CTP and now aims to maintain the same delegation for the fifth consecutive session of the CTP.
Officers who had the opportunity to participate in the discussions, even if only remotely, expressed satisfaction and said that sharing ideas and learning from others' experiences increased their motivation.
Of course, there are obvious benefits to participating in technical groups that maintain critical standards, such as the WCO Data Model. An Argentine delegation has been attending the Data Model Project Team (DMPT) meetings since June 2020.While it is true that face-to-face meetings facilitate networking and the development of good relationships between participants and Secretariat staff, the move to a virtual format has been very positive as it has allowed us to participate in each and every DMPT meeting. We are now in a better position to implement the data model and have begun mapping our data sets to determine alignment with it. We also now understand what is on the horizon in terms of updates. «.
Another delegation has participated in the 2nd and 3rd Meeting of the Performance Measurement Working Group (PMWG), taking advantage of the virtual modality. “In a pre-pandemic context, the Argentine delegation of the PMWG would not have been able to participate in the Group’s face-to-face meetings due to budgetary constraints. On the other hand, thanks to virtuality, we not only participated in the meetings but also proactively contributed to the intersessional activities, acquiring a greater individual and collective commitment in relation to our administration and the WCO.”
The same is true for OMA events. While most of them were already streamed live online and available on the OMA YouTube channel, the virtual format makes it possible for more people to attend such events and interact with the speakers.
The WCO Secretariat has been able to design not only remote meetings, but also remote capacity building. This enabled Argentina to receive assistance in conducting its first Time Release Study (TRS). During a four-day webinar, WCO experts provided detailed guidance on the TRS methodology to 30 officials and helped them draft an action plan. For those administrations that are still somewhat reluctant to engage with the WCO Secretariat remotely on capacity building activities, we have a message: “Go ahead!”
There are many lessons we can learn from this pandemic. One of them would be that participating in the work of the WCO is beneficial for the Administration, the country and the international community, and that we should find ways to facilitate this engagement once we “get back to normal”.
María Fernanda Giordano is a Technical Advisor at the Directorate of Coordination and Evaluation of Customs Operations, AFIP-General Directorate of Customss
This article was published in issue No. 95 of the World Customs Organization's magazine. [Publication: https://mag.wcoomd.org/magazine/wco-news-95-june-2021/the-virtues-of-virtual/]
[1] https://mag.wcoomd.org/magazine/wco-news-93-october-2020/covid-19-wco-adopts-new-procedures-and-tools-to-ensure-business-continuity/
